As he crossed stretch after stretch of uneven reef rocks and saw the shellfish growing thickly over them, he thought anyone with trypophobia would have broken out in goosebumps.
But had he spotted wild kelp in the cracks?
"Kelp?"
The wind on the island was particularly strong, blowing the kelp out from the reef rocks.
When he had come this way earlier, his attention had been on the beach, and he hadn't looked closely at the rocks beside it. The things growing there weren't going anywhere anyway. Only now, looking around on his way back, did he notice it.
Farmed kelp grew on ropes, while wild kelp clung to reef rocks and grew on the stone.
At this time, none of the villages around them farmed kelp. It seemed it would be another few years before the Village Committee learned the cultivation techniques from another county seat and organized the villagers to grow it.
He couldn't remember clearly either. It had been too long, and he had spent his own days muddling through life back then.
Thinking that wild kelp wasn't easy to come by either-it was rare in most places, and there wasn't any farmed kelp around-he hesitated a moment, then headed toward the rocks.
He had originally planned to dig up that patch of bamboo razor clams before slowly prying the catch off the rock faces. Taking a look over here first wouldn't take much time.
When he got closer, he saw that the things fluttering inward in the wind really were kelp. Who knew how long they had been growing? Some were particularly large, pressed flat against the rocks by the wind, while only the smaller ones still fluttered a little.
Kelp normally wasn't green but yellowish brown. Against these rocks, it looked like part of them